Undecided on what I should or can do

ethan

ethan

ethan

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Is it possible to simply swop a windows 10 OS with all my apps by placing the hard drive from one Pc to another without doing a system image? I'm planning also to use this system as a backup.
This pc has everything working the way I want it. For example Photoshop has all of my Actions and Plugins set up and installed. It would take forever to reinstall.

I'm just building the replacement to the Pc mentioned above and just wondered whether it could be much similar /easier simply to pull the hard drive from the other and place it in this despite their being a different cpu and motherboard. The version of Windows 10 is a retail upgrade from Windows 7 (non Pro). Thanks.
 
Technically, yes - but you might find issues with licenses; if they use any form of hardware fingerprint.

You'll also be bringing over all the old drivers, which may no longer be relevant on your new machine - so you might need to clean those up with some form of driver cleaner.

A fresh O/S install is always preferable though, even if it means some short term pain setting things up again.
 
Scort said:
Technically, yes - but you might find issues with licenses; if they use any form of hardware fingerprint.

You'll also be bringing over all the old drivers, which may no longer be relevant on your new machine - so you might need to clean those up with some form of driver cleaner.

A fresh O/S install is always preferable though, even if it means some short term pain setting things up again.
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I understand what you are saying and normally I would agree. It's a prolonged pain since it takes an age to sort and reinstall Actions in photoshop which only work in certain versions of photoshop.

I suppose the only alternative would be to work both machines in tandem and reinstall over a period of months.
 
Windows 10 is far better at getting itself working when transferred to new hardware. If you were talking about an earlier version of Windows I'd always say to start with a clean install, but with Windows 10 it's worth a shot. If the drive is imaged before you start you've got nothing to lose except a bit of time.
 
I’m old school, I would 100% recommend a fresh OS. Windows 10 is better at getting its own drivers than it used to be, but it is such a flakey, unreliable OS that it just doesn’t seem worth the bother. There’s a very good chance you may end up rebuilding it further down the line, so you may as well bite the bullet and do it now.
 
Biggler said:
Is there not a way to transfer the photoshop settings on to a fresh install?
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I have not used PS in many years, but I would be very surprised if that was not possible. A lot of apps you can just copy their data folders from %appdata% or %localappdata% and copy it to the new profile on the newly built machine, although as I say I don't have in depth knowledge of PS to know if that is possible.
 
Biggler said:
Is there not a way to transfer the photoshop settings on to a fresh install?
Click to expand...
You mean clone the setup from one installation on to another Pc? I don't know? It would certainly save time if you could as opposed to reinstalling five years worth of actions, plugins and extensions.
 
ethan said:
Is it possible to simply swop a windows 10 OS with all my apps by placing the hard drive from one Pc to another without doing a system image? I'm planning also to use this system as a backup.
This pc has everything working the way I want it. For example Photoshop has all of my Actions and Plugins set up and installed. It would take forever to reinstall.

I'm just building the replacement to the Pc mentioned above and just wondered whether it could be much similar /easier simply to pull the hard drive from the other and place it in this despite their being a different cpu and motherboard. The version of Windows 10 is a retail upgrade from Windows 7 (non Pro). Thanks.
Click to expand...

If it's a back up, surely you need to copy the set up at some point anyway? If you just transfer the hard drive from your back up machine, you can no longer use it should your main machine fail, or have I missed something?
 
wesimmo said:
If it's a back up, surely you need to copy the set up at some point anyway? If you just transfer the hard drive to your back up machine, you can no longer use your main machine, or have I missed something?
Click to expand...
Getting a bit confusing. The backup is currently my main pc until I have finished building the new one. Once the new one is built (I9 9900k) then this will replace it. The OS is a retail version so there shouldn't be any licensing difficulties. The problem is with having to reinstall everything from scratch as opposed to keeping everything the way it's and being able to swop the drive to the new pc.
 
Yeah sorry I edited my post, but you must have started quoting before I did.

Makes more sense, you'd still have to set up PS again if you went to your back up, though that's obviously worst case. It'd still be worth looking into how to transfer a PS config I guess.
 
I'd just switch the drive straight over, I did it numerous times when I used Windows 10 and it was a completely pain free exercise every time.
 
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